This app could make bricklaying faster and cheaper

Work & Lifestyle

A software company is selling a hologram-creating app to help brick masons

Spotted: Software company Fologram is using holograms to revolutionise how brick masons work. Traditionally, complicated brickwork is expensive, requiring time-consuming planning and minute control over details. Fologram has produced an app that translates a sketch of an already designed brick project into a hologram that is projected on the worksite. By wearing special glasses — HoloLens — made by Microsoft, bricklayers can see the hologram and follow step-by-step instructions to rebuild the sketch in real life.

Takeaway:

Brickwork is attractive but expensive and time consuming. Several innovations have sought to use artificial intelligence to streamline the process. For instance, there is already a robot arm that lays bricks faster than a human. But the designers at Fologram maintain that even the most sophisticated computer vision algorithms cannot match the intuition and skill of a trained bricklayer. A skilled bricklayer can charge as much as $62 an hour, according to industry websites. This app offers new opportunities for brick masons and architects to do more with less.